ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON - SCOTTISH LITERARY ICON OR BOYS’ AUTHOR?
In trying to select a Scottish writer whose life and works I might delve into as my next project
for the Carnie group, I immediately thought of Robert Louis Stevenson. I was surprised to
receive some reservations from the other members of the Carnie group.
A main comment was that Stevenson was not a contemporary of Burns. My colleagues regarded
him as a more “modern” author, or at least “Victorian”, and therefore not really a contributor to
Scottish literary history; at least not in the context of our “Bardian” Carnie goals. After all, he
wasn’t even born until 1850!
Upon drilling into what I regarded as curious thinking, I learned that most Scottish school boys
regarded Robert Louis Stevenson as a child’s author. If they studied him at all at school, it was as
a result of having to prepare a book report for a sixth grade teacher.
Every boy read “Treasure Island” and imagined himself sailing the seas in search of adventure
and pirate treasure, black eye patch in place, saying things like “Avast, ye maties!” and “Yo, ho,
ho! And a bottle o’ rum!” In fact, when current respected mystery writer Ian Rankin unveiled a
statue of Stevenson last October in Edinburgh, he spoke of his first introduction to Robert Louis
as a boy, through reading a comic book version of Treasure Island.
My own introduction to Stevenson was through my Auntie Margaret, who gave me A Child’s
Garden of Verses, as a gift when I was 8 or 10. This book of poetry, published in 1885,
Stevenson dedicated to his childhood nurse, Alison Cunningham. It was she who cared for the
young R.L. through much childhood sickliness, and it was she who read to him Pilgrim’s
Progress and many other works and is said to have inspired him to become a writer. Thus from
his dedication:
“To Alison Cunningham From Her Boy
…
For all you pitied, all you bore,
In sad and happy days of yore:-My second Mother, my first Wife,
The angel of my infant life-From the sick child, now well and old,
Take, nurse, the little book you hold!
And grant it, Heaven, that all who read
May find as dear a nurse at need,
And every child who lists my rhyme,
In the bright, fireside, nursery clime,
May hear it in as kind a voice
As made my childish days rejoice!”
The poems in this volume are mostly flights of fancy. They express a young lad’s imagination
for life and adventure. Titles like: Escape at Bedtime, The Land of Nod, and My Bed is a Boat.
With verses like:
From breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.
All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do-All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.
The strangest things are these for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.
Reading these now, I still respect the imagery, but I regret that the writing does seem a touch
simple; written for a child. It’s clearly not of the depth or scope of Burns, of even his simpler
works. But is it as bad as all that? I’d like to think not. But then I compare Stevenson’s poem The
Cow with a work of the same name by another Scottish poet:
Stevenson:
The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.
And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all the showers,
She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers.
And the other one?
"The chicken is a noble beast,
The cow is much forlorner,
Standing in the pouring rain,
With a leg on every corner."
You’ll recognize the “genius” of William McGonagall.
Same rhyme scheme, same meter.
So, perhaps, Stevenson should not be hailed for his poetry.
But the premise that Stevenson stands among the greats of Scottish literature is not, I submit,
without merit. He is featured along-side Burns and Sir Walter Scott in Edinburgh’s Writers’
Museum, just off High Street. Further down the street at Canongate Kirkyard, it was Stevenson
who paid for the repair and refurbishment of the head stone Robert Burns had had erected to the
memory of Burn’s muse, Robert Fergusson.
In addition to those well-known and well-loved books such as Treasure Island (1883) and
Kidnapped (1886), Stevenson produced several short stories and other novels, including The
Wrecker and Catriona, and, of course, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. These later
works were decidedly not written for children.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were (was?) drawn from the dual personalities of Deacon Brodie, a
pious and talented Edinburgh furniture maker by day and a heinous and ruthless burglar by night,
who was ultimately hanged for his crimes. It was also based upon the two sides of Edinburgh
society, which Stevenson knew well: The proud and worthy establishment society portrayed to
the world versus the seamy underside of poverty and desperation.
Quote:
“Jekyll had more than a father's interest; Hyde had more than a son's indifference.”
And: “I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual
side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.”
Futher: "'O God!' I screamed, and 'O God!' again and again; for there before my eyes--pale and
shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death-there stood Henry Jekyll!"
The chilling imagery is quite wonderful. It tends to persuade me towards a verdict of “greatness”
in Stevenson’s writing.
Of particular interest to us is an article Stevenson wrote about Robert Burns for Cornhill
magazine in October 1879, entitled “Some Aspects of Robert Burns”. I want so badly to provide
you with quotations from that essay. I shall append it to the on-line version of this paper because
it would be a shame if every one of you does not read it. My purpose in having you do so is twofold: First, the article puts forth in an insightful manner an in-depth record and analysis of the life
of Robert Burns. If nothing else, quotes taken from it and duly acknowledged would enhance any
immortal memory you might deliver. Second, the writing style is captivating and sure proof of
the training and education and passion of its author, Robert Louis. Here are but two examples:
“Robert steps before us, almost from the first, in his complete character—a proud, headstrong, impetuous lad,
greedy of pleasure, greedy of notice ; in his own phrase ‘panting after distinction,’ and in his brother’s ‘ cherishing a
particular jealousy of people who were richer or of more consequence than himself; ’ with all this, he was
emphatically of the artist nature. Already he made a conspicuous figure in Tarbolton church, with the only tied hair
in the parish, e and his plaid, which was of a particular colour, wrapped in a particular manner round his shoulders.’
Ten years later, when a married man, the father of a family, a farmer, and an officer of Excise, we shall find him out
fishing in masquerade, with fox-skin cap, belted greatcoat, and great Highland broadsword. He liked dressing up, in
fact, for its own sake. This is the spirit which leads to the extravagant array of Latin Quarter students, and the
proverbial velveteen of the English landscape-painter ; and, though the pleasure derived is in itself merely personal,
it shows a man who is, to say the least of it, not pained by general attention and remark. His father wrote the family
name Burnes; Robert early adopted the orthography Burness from his cousin in the Mearns; and in his twenty-eighth
year changed it once more to Burns. It is plain that the last transformation was not made without some qualm ; for in
addressing his cousin he adheres, in at least one more letter, to spelling number two. And this, again, shows a man
pre-occupied about the manner of his appearance even down to the name, and little willing to follow custom.”
And:
“On the night of Mauchline races, 1785, the young men and women of the place joined in a penny ball, according to
their custom. ‘In the same set danced Jean Armour, the master-mason’s daughter, and our dark-eyed Don Juan. His
dog (not the immortal Luath, but a successor unknown to fame, caret quia vate sacro), apparently sensible of some
neglect, followed his master to and fro, to the confusion of the dancers. Some mirthful comments followed; and Jean
heard the poet say to his partner—or, as I should imagine, laughingly launch the remark to the company at large—
that ‘he wished he could get any of the lassies to like him as well as his dog.’ Some time after, as the girl was
bleaching clothes on Mauchline green, Robert chanced to go by, still accompanied by his dog; and the dog, ‘
scouring in long excursion,’ scampered with four black paws across the linen. This brought the two into
conversation; when Jean, with a somewhat hoydenish advance, inquired if he had yet got any of the lassies to like
him as well as his dog.’”
So to conclude the prosaic analysis I undertook in this project, I can do no better than to return to
quote Ian Rankin at the unveiling of Stevenson’s statue last fall: (Quote)
“From Jekyll and Hyde I went back to all the other stuff that Stevenson had written and the thing
that I like about him is that he’s a writer for all ages. As a child you can read Stevenson. As a
teenager you can read him. As an adult you can read him. He wrote different books for different
people, and you get something out of them every time you go back and re-read them you get
something out of them you didn’t get the previous time you read them.”
I am cognizant that in presenting a biographical sketch of someone you are supposed to provide
the life story of the individual. But I’ve found that if you start off by giving the person’s
statistical information, there is a tendency for the audience to quickly tune out and relegate your
presentation to the same bin where grade 10 history essays belong. So I’ll give you Stevenson’s
facts thusly:
Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson was born on 13 November 1850, the only child of Margaret
Isabella Balfour (1829 – 1897) and Thomas Stevenson (1818 – 1887). He later changed his given
name “Lewis” to Louis, although throughout his life it was still pronounced “Lewis”. He
attended Edinburgh Academy with the intention that he would follow in his grandfather’s and
father’s careers as civil engineers, but preferred to write (some would say “dream”) and so he
studied law to satisfy his father’s concern that he at least be educated in something. Stevenson
spent time in Belgium and France. While there, he met Fanny Osborne (sans her husband) with
her two children, Lloyd and Isobel. In 1879, he sailed to America where, after an arduous trip
across the continent, he caught up to the newly divorced fair Fanny. They were married the next
Spring. He was actually corresponding from the U.S. when he wrote the piece about Burns for
the Cornhill Magazine, which I referred to earlier. They returned to Britain the following year
and remained at various abodes until 1888, when Louis’s failing health led them to set sail for
Samoa. He bought a 400 acre estate on a hill and engrossed himself in the native culture and
social scene. He charmed the locals with his stories and wrote prolifically. The locals dubbed
him Tusitala, meaning “Teller of Tales”. He died of a brain hemorrhage on December 3, 1894, at
the age of 44.
He is buried on a hill on the estate overlooking the sea. The inscription on his tomb stone reads:
“Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig my grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me,
Here he lies where he longed to be.
Home is the sailor home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Perhaps a little better attempt at poetry.
Prepared for and Presented to The Calgary Burns Club on February 10, 2014 by Jim Hope-Ross
RLS said it:
- Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you sow.
- That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
- You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us.
- Marriage is like life - it is a field of battle, not a bed of roses.
- Compromise is the best and cheapest lawyer.